WASHINGTON — Texas industries would be hit hard in the budget President Barack Obama proposed Monday, through an end to oil and gas subsidies, aggressive promotion of clean energy and regulation of greenhouse gases — all to the dismay of many Texas lawmakers.
The $3.7 trillion proposal also omits nearly all funding for Dallas' multibillion-dollar Trinity River project. Presidents have tried to kill the project for years, but with Congress adhering to a new ban on earmarks — long the Trinity project's lifeblood — it's on shakier ground than ever.
Without a mandate from Congress, it will be "very hard to get it funded," said Maj. Gen. William Grisoli, deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for much of the Trinity project.
The Obama budget faces stiff resistance in Congress on many levels, but Texans in Congress found much of the energy-related agenda especially unwelcome.
The White House plan would eliminate $3.6 billion in annual tax breaks for oil and gas producers, using much of the savings to subsidize industries that benefit from Obama's clean-energy focus: electric vehicles, energy efficiency and solar power.
"We are reducing subsidies for oil that are unnecessary, outdated, inefficient," said Gene Sperling , director of the White House National Economic Council.
The plan also boosts spending on clean-air regulations that Texas has sued to block.
Administration officials deny that Obama's budget aims at the state, saying his agenda makes investments that will make the country more competitive, cut carbon pollution and spur innovation and a "green jobs future."
"This is about policy, pure and simple," Sperling said.
Much of the new spending would be directed through the Department of Energy, one of the few winners in this year's budget lottery. The department's budget would increase by $3.2 billion, or 12 percent.
But the clean-air component ensures a fight with Republicans , whose own budget plan for the rest of 2011, issued Friday, would block the Environmental Protection Agency from spending money to regulate greenhouse gases.
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